Thursday, January 3, 2019

January 3 #OnThisDay in #Australian #History

1788 - Captain Arthur Phillip was on board HMS Supply when, bored to tears from the long First Fleet voyage, Smarty-Arty played Eye, Spy with the coast of Van Diemen's Land.

1812 - Amongst the various Government and General Orders issued on this day by Gov Macquarie was..
"His Excellency, the Governor directs that tomorrow shall be considered as a holiday, and that the convicts shall be exempted from labour during the whole of the day.
His Excellency is further pleased to direct that an extra ration of one pounds and a half of fresh beef shall be served out tomorrow to each non-com officer and soldier of the 73rd Reg't and male convict in the settlement of Newcastle with the usual proportion to all the women and children...."

1813 - At Kissing Point (Putney) Woollarawarre Bennelong passed from this world to the next, he was buried in the orchard of his great friend brewer James Squire.

1825 - The absconding convicts headed south and reached as far as Reid's Mistake (Lake Macquarie) a distance of about 15 nautical miles. Lieut. Owen reached the same place on the 3rd January where he found the oars and rudder, all that remained of the gig which had been swamped. With the help of the native trackers they soon afterwards captured five of the prisoners - Tunnicliffe, Pritchard, Smith, Johnston and Collins in a hut with Private Yams. The telescope was found with them. They were brought into Newcastle on this day and lodged in the gaol.

1826 - Father Philip Conolly opened the first Catholic school in Van Diemen's Land at Hobart.

1827 - Pack the picnic basket with the Waterford Crystal Auntie Maud....The first boat regatta, organised by the officers of HMS Success and HMS Rainbow, was held on the Derwent River.

1839 - John Hutt replaced James Stirling as Governor of WA. Stirlingm, not one to mess about, left for England the next day.

1840 - Read all about it...The Port Phillip Herald began publication in Melbourne, edited by George Cavenagh.

1841 - The steamer Clonmel, on just its second voyage between Sydney and Melbourne, was wrecked near Corner Inlet.

1850 - Victoria's first stamps issued. Costing 1d., 2d. and 3d., they featured a portrait of Queen Victoria, who was most definitely not amused to have 'colonials' licking her back !

1851 - Today was the final day in a series of 'examinations' aka massacres that took place on Fraser Island between Christmas Day 1850 and January 3, 1851. In a newspaper report it was called "a jaunt" with the added description of "...natives were driven into the sea and kept there as long as daylight or life lasted."

1853 - Keep the pennies under the mattress...The Bank of Victoria opened in Melbourne.

1861 - The Wallsend Railway Branch line (NSW) was opened.

1863 - Artist, sculptor and author Margaret Thomas, who was the first woman to study sculpture in Victoria and was later described by D. B. W. Sladen as 'the first Australian-bred sculptor of eminence', was lauded today in the Illustrated Melbourne Post who described her work as '... true poetic feeling … undoubtedly spiritual element … innate love of the beautiful … refined delicacy of pure taste …'

1870 - A state flag of Western Australia was adopted...and it wasn't the Governors' wifes' bloomers, for a change.

1870 - Today saw the first issue of the Express, the first daily in WA.

1870 - Henry Handel Richardson aka Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, Australian author of The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, The Getting of Wisdom, The Garden Party, and Other Stories, and Maurice Guest, was hatched in Victoria Parade in Fitzroy.

1872 - At Mparntwe (Alice Springs) the first connection was made in the iconic Overland Telegraph which had better coverage and rates than the NBN today.

1881 - Despite the names of an Aboriginal family appearing on the application for a school to be established in Gulargambone, NSW on this day non-Aboriginal families later lobbied to have the family excluded due to them being Indigenous.

1884 - The Bombala Railway Line (NSW) was opened.

1877 - Joseph Jacka brewed the first beer at the family's brewery in Melrose, South Oz.

1881 - Despite the names of an Aboriginal family appearing on the application for a school to be established in Gulargambone, NSW non-Aboriginal families later lobbied to have the family excluded due to them being Indigenous.

1912 - "Those magnificent men in their flying machines, they go up upity-up-up..." Australia's first aviation school, Hart's, opened at Penrith by Postmaster General C.E. Frazer. Founded by aviator William Hart, the school had been transferred from Ham Common, near Richmond.

1934 - Today Melbourne, and Australia, lost one of its characters - Killarney Kate aka Ellen Cahill, a street singer who was more famous than the Flinders Street Clocks, when she passed on her journey aged 65 years.

1955 - Charles Chauvel's movie 'Jedda' was screened for the first time in Darwin, notable for being the first to star two Aboriginal actors, Robert Tudawali, better known Bobby Wilson and Ngarla Kunoth, now known as Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, in the leading roles. It was also the first Australian feature film to be shot in colour.

1962 - The first Standard Gauge Freight sailed into and then departed from the Dynon Rail Freight Terminal.

1964 - The Destroyer Class ship HMAS ANZAC landed parties on Tasman Island not for picnics but to fight bushfires.

1967 - The Bee Gees were at No 1 in the singles chart with the single " Spickes and Specks"... and it's a damn funny TV show on the ABC.

1971 - First issue of Sunday Independent, Perth

1988 - Money and valuables worth around $100 million were stolen in a raid on the National Bank in Sydney's Chinatown over the New Year holiday weekend.

1990 - 'The Herald' celebrated its 150th birthday. Founded in 1840 by George Cavenagh, "The Port Phillip Herald" was delivered free ' to every respectable inhabitant of Melbourne' and won much continued public support.Ahhh...that's why they wouldn't sell me a copy.

2002 - Australia fires continued for the 11th straight day. At least 40 were fires were started by arsonists. Over 100 fires covered 1,250 square miles.

2010 - In southeastern Australia more than 1,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in Coonamble, in central New South Wales, as the worst floodwaters to hit the area in a decade threatened to swamp a remote farming town.

2011 - Australian military flights rushed to restock the coastal city of Rockhampton before it was cut off by floodwaters that have turned a huge swath of the Outback into a lake. Police confirmed two more deaths in the crisis.

2013 - Australian astronomers discovered a comet named C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring). Scientists said it will pass about 50km from Mars on October 19, 2014. On Oct 19 the comet’s closest approach to Mars was about 140,000 km.